"A one-and-a-half-year-old child...should not be able to speak yet."
Bayard tapped the amber wine glass with his fingers and said with some surprise.
"Absolutely. One or two words are fine, but I really can't say a complete sentence."
Franz Pomponazzi nodded: "Before I could speak, I knew how to kill. That was the first time I sucked blood from a living person instead of drinking a blood bottle.
"When I grew up, I discovered...it seemed like everyone knew about this. It seemed like everyone knew...that I killed my biological sister with my own hands when I just learned to walk. Hahaha..."
He laughed, but there was no joy in his laughter.
He put his wine glass back on the table.
Even though the wine in the glass was the best in this world, he couldn't bring himself to drink it.
"Do you still remember what people called me back then?"
Pomponazzi did not wait for "Bayard" to reply, because he was asking and answering himself: "That 'little monster from the Pomponazzi family'."
"So, you became a real monster?"
"Bayard" said softly: "Kill your whole family?"
"Why not."
Peng Bonazi said calmly: "My brother killed my sister, and my sister killed my brother. My father killed my brother, and I myself also killed my sister. Since this is the education I received since I was a child, and this is what people expect of me, then
Why can't I become such a person when I grow up?
"Besides, I didn't kill them completely..."
As he said that, Peng Bonaqi stretched out his hand to touch his chest and abdomen.
Aleister realized something: "You can't be..."
"Oh, it's not as simple as eating."
Peng Bonazi smiled: "At that time, all the servants in the family were killed by us as 'blood bags', and they all fought against each other until they were gray... and I was the one who won in the end.
"But I was also seriously injured and dying in that 'civil war', and was cursed by my mother. So I prepared a resurrection ceremony - I drained the remaining blood from my own body. I mixed it with the remaining blood, and the remaining blood was not
More blood, use them to resurrect me again... In this way, the curse can be removed.
"At that time, I had a sudden thought - because I was worried about what if I failed to resurrect due to lack of blood, and they were resurrected by others by chance.
"So I smashed all the statues of my family members and gathered some of their ashes around me. I took away a part of them, so that none of them could be fully resurrected.
"And when I died and was reborn, I merged with them. I had a sister and two brothers, plus my father and mother, a total of five copies, and I was the sixth…
...It is the 'number of adaptation'. The original blood was not even enough to resurrect one person, let alone six copies of ashes. I think... I was able to survive from that state, perhaps because of the favor of the Lord of Scales and Feathers.
Bar."
——That’s why he calls himself “Peng Bonazi”.
Aleister understood.
It's not because he is alienated from others, nor is it because he still remembers his surname as a down-and-out nobleman. Because to him, it is not just a surname... but also "family".
He is not a pure "Franz", but the ultimate fusion of all "Pomponazi".
That's why he likes men and women, gentle and violent, conservative and radical... because what constitutes "Pomponacci" is not the same consciousness.
"Because I am the only one left in the whole 'Peng Bonazi', so of course the family's assets will also belong to me. Although my family is considered a noble, it has no fief for a long time... It is just a down-and-out noble. So I simply
All the family's assets were sold for my own enjoyment.
"People hate me and reject me. Although they respect me on the surface, I know... they just want my money."
Peng Bonazi sneered: "If they want it, I'll give it to them. Watching them fight to the death for that kind of thing, criticizing and framing each other, makes me happy - who is the monster? Is it me? Is it them?
Or those shiny golden round cakes?
"After all, I don't care about that kind of thing. It would be better to say that I have been prepared to die for a long time. I am not a ritual master, and the resurrection ritual is just a mechanical device. If something goes wrong, I may not be able to
Resurrected; even before I did this, I didn't know whether it was me or some Chimera who was resurrected.
"Until I met Bashir. He is a very interesting human being... I can feel that he is one of the few people who is not afraid of me or laughs at me - he dared to come directly to me when we first met.
Want money."
"……oh?"
Aleister couldn't help but laugh.
Was it the development of "this man is so special that he caught my attention"?
But Pomponazzi’s words denied Aleister’s guess:
"In order to use money to support his research, he was even willing to die. It was not as a blood slave, nor was it an empty talk like 'I am willing to die for you'... He came directly with a contract certified by the Silver Crown Dragon.
Come to me and give me your life in exchange for a sum of money.
"Until he later became a monarch and established a kingdom... this contract was still with me. He never asked me to get it back, nor did he ask me to destroy it."
"You must have agreed."
"Of course I gave it to him! It's just a small amount of money, how can such a thing be so fun!"
Peng Bonazi laughed wildly. It was hard to tell how much of his laughter was sincere and how much was an exaggerated performance.
It's like a child telling a joke and then starting to laugh hard.
In a sense...Peng Bonazi, who was born the son of the moon and has permanently bright red eyes, has never experienced a true coming-of-age ceremony.
The adult transformation of the children of the moon is when they realize that they are no longer their past selves. At that moment, the emotions and desires suppressed by morality burst out instantly... Then [Beast] defeated [Love], and Moon
His son completely turned into a bloodthirsty beast.
——The so-called adulthood is to let go of the innocent self of the past.
For Pomponazzi, he "mature" too early and "adult" too late - from the beginning of his memory, he has been doing things that adults would do;
As he grew older, he got part of his family's personality and memories out of thin air.
But maybe until now, he has not truly matured.
Because he has no innocence that can be abandoned.
Seeing that "Lady Bayard" was not smiling, Peng Bonacci's laughter gradually stopped.
He was silent for a while, calmed down, and then continued: "I was very curious at the time, what on earth was he studying... that made him work so hard. Do you know what he was talking about?
"——He said, I am researching the Moon Child. But I can't find a Moon Child that can be used for research. I can only find someone to buy the Moon Child's ashes at a high price."
This time even Aleister couldn't stand it.
...Is Bashir so awesome? The person in front of you is the Son of the Moon!
Having said this, Peng Bonazi laughed again: "Because at that time, the Sons of the Moon had not yet fully occupied the upper echelons of the empire.
"At that time, there were some 'vampire hunters' who had hatred towards us. In order to deceive other nobles into targeting us, they created a rumor with the United Medical Association - claiming that the ashes of the Children of the Moon can aphrodisiac.
"...I have to say that this widely circulated rumor has caused great obstacles to our penetration. Many nobles hire 'vampire hunters' at high prices to hunt the Children of the Moon. Although there are many fakes on the black market, occasionally
There are also genuine products. At the same time, there are also some nobles who will try to raise children of the moon.
"In most cases, the children of the moon are young and beautiful, immortal and have strong desires. Because the children of the moon cannot cross the flowing water, when the children of the moon are imprisoned underground and surrounded by underground rivers,
It forms a one-way existence and a prison that cannot be broken out of.
"So there will be some nobles who buy the 'complete ashes of the Moon Child girl' at a high price, and then resurrect them with blood; there are also some people who long for immortality... Although some people warn that the resurrection of the Moon Child is not what they want, but it does not hinder it.
Some people would want to imprison the Son of the Moon to force him to find a way to transform, or use a contract to bind the other person to become his thug - this is why I specifically wanted to crush the ashes of my family members.
"It is precisely for this reason that those Moon Children with higher 'birth' are fine, while those with lower origins are often mercilessly hunted by hunters. Even so, the price of Moon Children's ashes on the black market is very high...
...It’s so high that Bashir will never be able to afford it in his lifetime if he only relies on his own income.”
"So you gave him money?"
Aleister asked.
"No," Peng Bonacci shrugged, "Although I don't care about money, this level of waste is still unnecessary."
"……waste?"
"Well, I gave him all the ashes of my family."
Peng Bonazi smiled happily: "His 'disenchantment' will completely destroy the possibility of their resurrection - if I had known this, I wouldn't have had to use that method to fuse.
"Perhaps it's because I often sigh and say, 'Why didn't I meet you earlier?' That child probably regards me as a confidant or a close friend."
But it is obvious that until then... Pomponazzi did not regard Bashir as a person who could communicate with him on an equal footing. But Bashir, who has low emotional intelligence, thought that "the two are already friends."
"That's all.
"——Until he gives me his research."
Peng Bonaqi said softly: "I admire his talent - he actually analyzed the method of perfecting the human being by disenchanting the ashes of the Son of the Moon."
"..."The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony"?"
Aleister knew what he meant by "research."
"The Triumphal Carriage of Antimony" written by Valentine I tells the story of the transcendent alchemy that sublimates animal nature into God.
If this alchemy can be completely completed... it will mean that he has created an ability that "can stably become a Tiansi". In Xianxia novels, it is a technique that can be used from Qi training to ascension.
But obviously...perhaps because the material Bashir consumed during his research was Children of the Moon, Pomponazzi believed that this book was about how to achieve the "perfect man".
"Let a ferocious gray wolf devour the body of the king, and then burn it to ashes in the fire. Repeat this three times, and the lion will overcome the wolf, and there will no longer be anything in him that can be devoured.
"Then the lion purified himself with the blood of the wolf, and the color of its blood most wonderfully matched that of a lion; and after the lion's hunger was appeased, his spirit became more powerful than ever, and his eyes shone like the sun...
"
Pomponazzi recited the words in "The Triumph Carriage of Antimony" without hesitation: "The lion is the 'soul of gold', and the color of the moon is gold. This sentence is superficially about a kind of gold.
The method of purification, but what it actually talks about is the predation and sublimation of the Children of the Moon.
"Both are transcendent beasts, but the more powerful lion is the son of the moon. The gray wolf is a mortal and also symbolizes the alchemist - the mortal draws divine power from the dream world and burns himself in the promotion ceremony.
Turned into ashes. After three repetitions, it was promoted to the fourth energy level... and the human body was purified.
"Tasting the blood of gold, the lion's hunger will be quelled. The blood-sucking of the Moon Child can only quench its thirst. Only blood with the fourth energy level and above has the sacred effect that can completely calm the Moon Child..."
…That’s what it turns out to be.
Aleister finally understood why the blood of Isabel and Aiwass could make him calm. But Selene's blood would only make him more excited and restless...
For a moment, even Aleister himself had some doubts - could he have understood it wrong?
Does "Antimony's Triumphal Car" really covertly tell the story of the art of perfection?
"And at the same time...he also prepared for himself the path to advancement." The king traveled through the six regions of the sky and settled in the seventh region as his residence. There, golden tapestries decorated the palace. If you
Know what I mean, this key will open the first lock and push the first bolt'... This is the first of the twelve keys proposed by Bashir in the book. After reading this
When you become an alchemist, you become a Star Antimony Alchemist.
"The 'Golden Stone Knight' will change his soul seven times. The first six energy levels have reached the limit of the world, and the seventh energy level has undoubtedly reached the divine realm.
"This book records both his promotion technique and my promotion technique. In the mortal world, he was the king and I was the wise prime minister... and when we ascend to the dream world, I will be the immortal.
King, and he will be my knight of gold and stone."
Pomponazzi said softly: "From then on, I regarded him as my true friend.
"Far closer than my family...my only friend, my traveler."
